Peloponnesian League

The Peloponnesian League was an alliance of Peloponnesian Greek city-states led by Sparta which existed from the 6th to 4th centuries BC. Sparta rid Corinth of tyranny and turned it into an ally, and Elis joined the League after Sparta helped it gain control of the Olympic Games. Sparta used both foreign policy and military intervention to gain other allies, and it soon came to include all of the regional states except for Argos and Achaea. It was a conservative alliance which supported oligarcy and opposed both tyranny and democracy, and, after the Greco-Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian League became rivals with the Athens-led Delian League. This led to the Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BC, resulting in a Spartan victory. Following Thebes' victory over Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, Elis and Arcadia threw off the Spartan yoke, and the League declined until King Philip II of Macedon had it disbanded in 338 BC and replaced by the League of Corinth.